Archives and Genealogy

The Society’s archival col­lec­tions include local fam­i­ly his­to­ries, cen­sus returns for Water­loo Town­ship and for St. Boni­face Church, nat­u­ral­iza­tion records, Tweedsmuir his­to­ries, land records, church his­to­ries and ceme­tery tran­scripts. We also have fam­i­ly his­to­ries donat­ed by descen­dants of our founders.

Since its incep­tion in 1977 the Soci­ety has pro­duced and col­lect­ed a vast amount of archival mate­r­i­al relat­ed to Mary­hill. Our Archivist Diane Strick­ler has been instru­men­tal in the cre­ation of our archives.

The Diane Strickler Collection of Family Trees

This Col­lec­tion con­sists of 1,371 fam­i­lies. with data from church records, nat­u­ral­iza­tion reg­is­ters, ceme­tery tran­scrip­tions, as well as Water­loo town­ship cen­sus returns com­ple­ment­ed by pub­lished fam­i­ly his­to­ries. Fam­i­ly trees in this col­lec­tion vary from one to one hun­dred and six­ty-four pages. The index pro­vides a ref­er­ence to the names of each fam­i­ly tree avail­able, the num­ber of pages, and pur­chase price plus ship­ping and han­dling charges.

Click on the Index of Fam­i­ly Names below to read the full list of names in the

Diane Strickler Collection of Family Trees

Links to Soufflenheim

One of the strengths of our soci­ety is the liai­son we have with Souf­flen­heim and sur­round­ing area in present day Alsace from where so many of the ear­ly set­tlers orig­i­nat­ed. The pho­to shows archivist Diane Strick­ler and Alsa­t­ian Vis­i­tors want­i­ng to vis­it where their 19th cen­tu­ry fam­i­ly set­tled in Cana­da.

The Old Walled Cemetery

Sev­er­al brass plaques attached to the wall of the Old Ceme­tery recount pio­neer fam­i­lies in Mary­hill.

Family Days in Maryhill

With the assis­tance of the Soci­ety sev­er­al fam­i­lies have arranged reunions and spe­cial cel­e­bra­tions to hon­our their ances­tors. In recent years these include:

Weil­er Mil­len­ni­um Gath­er­ing 2000

Got­tlieb Brohman Tomb­stone Ded­i­ca­tion 2011

Frantz Joseph Brohman Tomb­stone Ded­i­ca­tion 2016

Schmuck Fam­i­ly Reunion 2018

The Mary­hill HS can assist you in your plan­ning. Drop us an e-mail describ­ing your plans and what we may be able to do for the event.

Weiler Millenium Gathering 2000

In 2000 descen­dants of the Weil­er Fam­i­ly gath­ered in Mary­hill to cel­e­brate their her­itage. At this time John JA Weil­er pub­lished a his­to­ry of the fam­i­ly.

The Weiler Plaque

Schmuck Family Reunion 2018

On Sun­day August 19th the His­tor­i­cal Society’s Edward Hal­ter House was the set­ting for a Schmuck Fam­i­ly Reunion. 30 descen­dants of Bern­hardt Schmuck Sr and Marie Anna Mess­mer joined togeth­er to cel­e­brate their her­itage on the lawn of the Hal­ter House. They toured the Hal­ter House, view­ing many local arti­facts and fam­i­ly records. Fam­i­ly mem­bers came from as far away as Texas, Philadel­phia, Illi­nois and Detroit. The group shared pic­tures and sto­ries, toured the orig­i­nal Schmuck home­stead (now owned by Rick Motz) and the Old Walled Ceme­tery. The Schmuck fam­i­ly arrived in New Ger­many (now Mary­hill) in 1870.

The Old Walled Cemetery

Sev­er­al brass plaques attached to the wall of the Old Ceme­tery recount pio­neer fam­i­lies in Mary­hill.

The Drexler/Sauer/Schmuck/Messmer Plaque.

Tombstone for Gottlieb Brohman

On Sep­tem­ber 18, 2011 as a part of the annu­al Mary­hill Her­itage Sun­day descen­dants of Got­tlieb Brohman gath­ered at St Boni­face [Old Walled Ceme­tery] to observe the erec­tion of a Ceme­tery Mark­er for Got­tlieb Brohman and a restored mon­u­ment for his wife Cather­ine Lauber. Tom Schell of Guelph gg grand­son via Got­tlieb jr spear­head­ed this trib­ute to Got­tlieb one of the founders of Mary­hill.

Note: Cather­ine Brohman direct­ed a mon­u­ment for her­self in her will; Got­tlieb did not have a mon­u­ment until 2011.

Tombstone for Frantz Joseph Brohman

Lit­tle did I know some 50 plus years ago when I asked my par­ents about my her­itage where that ques­tion would lead me. They gave me some vague answers about mov­ing to Nebras­ka from Cana­da and they real­ly didn’t know much more than that. How­ev­er, I was able to con­tact Helen Shep­herd from St. Joseph, Mo. (my 1st cousin once removed) who had been doing some fam­i­ly research. Once we became con­nect­ed off I went on a quest to find out more about my fam­i­ly her­itage and my first trip to Cana­da.

When I arrived in Mary­hill some years ago I met with a lot of my rel­a­tives, many of whom were new acquain­tances to me and oth­ers that I had been in touch by phone or email. From that ear­ly trip and the ones that fol­lowed I have had the priv­i­lege to become famil­iar with rel­a­tives who have been a great help in my search for my fam­i­ly his­to­ry.

Dur­ing those years some of us took notice that the tomb­stone of Frantz Joseph was bro­ken and that his name was miss­ing. It then became a mis­sion to start a col­lec­tion among rel­a­tives to get a new tomb­stone and refur­bish what was left of the old stone. We were suc­cess­ful and the ded­i­ca­tion took place on Sun­day June 12, of 2016. Father Voisin blessed the stone dur­ing the Mass. Every­one then pro­ceed­ed to the ceme­tery for the unveil­ing. Fol­low­ing the the unveil­ing a light lunch was pro­vid­ed at the Hal­ter House. It was fun meet­ing and talk­ing with every­one and meet­ing more rel­a­tives for the first time.

The Brohmans came from Rountzen­heim Alsace and immi­grat­ed at var­i­ous stages. Got­tlieb Brohman came first in 1828 and was fol­lowed by his three broth­ers: Frantz Joseph, Jacob and Ignatius in the 1830s. Their father Frantz Joseph fol­lowed lat­er in the 1840s. Joseph the eldest son was my ances­tor. He mar­ried Mag­dale­na Schu­mann on Feb 20, 1838. They raised 11 chil­dren. My great grand­fa­ther Wen­dell was one of those chil­dren who lat­er moved to Nebras­ka.

Thank you to those who have helped me through­out the years in this project. A spe­cial thanks to Diane Strick­ler and the Mary­hill His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety for lots of help ear­ly on in my fam­i­ly his­to­ry search and of course dur­ing the ded­i­ca­tion. And also to Tom Schell the pres­i­dent of the Mary­hill His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety and Char­lene for all their help with the ded­i­ca­tion and for wel­com­ing us the Hal­ter House Resource Cen­tre.

Rita Brohman Lit­tle, Irene Brohman Forbes, and Mary Ann Stroh (also a mem­ber of the His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety) also assist­ed with dona­tions and prepa­ra­tions for the ded­i­ca­tion. Sub­mit­ted by: Ron Brohman of Hele­na Mon­tana